Much Ado About Nerding: The Comic-Con Name Game

Ivan Cohen — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:14:14 +0000

With pop-culture industry executives, creative talent, and fans all packing their bags for San Diego and Comic-Con International, it seems like the right time to wrestle with the big issue: What's the difference between a nerd and a geek? As part of the flurry of analysis about ways that the new Spider-Man reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, differs from the previous films in the series, Linda Holmes took a stab at the distinction, arguing that Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker was "a classic nerd archetype," while Andrew Garfield's version is "the modern notion of a geek...more oddball than outcast." Holmes makes an interesting argument, though I'll admit I thought Garfield was playing the John Romita version of Spidey, Maguire the more Ditko-flavored version. But maybe that's because I'm just a big comics nerd at heart. Or am I a geek? It's hard to keep track, especially when the labels are kind of arbitrary. "Geek" has become the catch-all for fans who are passionate about anything other than math and science, in which case you're a nerd, or sports, in which case you're a fan, which is a totally normal lifestyle choice. Mainly because advertisers sell "fans" beer and cars. But if you're a math whiz who also likes football, we don't know what to call you. A baseball player who loves Alfred Hitchcock? Can't help ya. (I'm pretty sure the latter one's a jock, but one with hidden depths or something.) "Nerd" mainly endures today as a term of derision. It means more than just "outcast", it implies that you kind of deserve to be on the outside looking in, because your interests are obsessive and, well, decidedly not cool. These vague, all-over-the-place distinctions divide genre fans into smaller subgroups, making them easier to write off as an obscure subculture. Hey, did you know "fans" comes from fanatics, which was a form of derision for outcasts and oddballs alike until it stopped being one? Of course you did. If you're reading this, in addition to being a pop-culture geek, there's a good chance you're also a word nerd. Since rhyming and puns in headlines are an excellent way for the mainstream media to marginalize what they don't understand/respect, you'll see some even more painful nerd rhymes in this week's Comic-Con coverage. ("Nerd Herd Arrives In/Descends On San Diego" is my pick for the Weekend sections of this Friday's California papers and USA Today.) "Nerd Words" might get used to head a glossary of Comic-Con jargon that some reporter gets tasked with making up. You know, where they claim that Hall H is filled with attendees angry that "Prometheus really 'Jar-Jarred' the franchise" or other nonsense. But "geek" goes with stuff. Phrases like "Geek Chic" and "Geek Out" are fun to say, especially now that "geek" no longer calls up images of sideshow performers biting the heads off of chickens. There's a reason we at the Bonfire Agency use "The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth" on our home page. It's really, really catchy. It's also less limited. "Nerd" still generally implies glasses-wearing lover of math and science with few other interests. Geeks come in a wider variety, and although I'm not sure you can be a "baseball geek" or a "fashion geek" just yet, that day will come. Of course, once it does the so-called mainstream will have to come up with a new way to write off the millions of people who like things like Doctor Who, grindhouse movies, and radio comedy. At that point, I bet "nerd" gets yanked away from the pocket-protector set. But until then let's enjoy this moment, where geeks headline number-one movies at the box office, people proudly read their George R.R. Martin novels in public, and Twilight fan-fiction can become a best-selling porn trilogy. Geekdom is a big tent, and there's plenty of room for nerds in there. Unlike Hall H, where there's no room for anybody. See you at Comic-Con!

Why Geeks Had Nothing (and Everything) to Do with the Success of “The Avengers”

Ivan Cohen — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:12:33 +0000

With the biggest opening weekend ever (over $200 million in domestic box office) and near-unanimous praise, The Avengers is an instant object-lesson in how to do a super-hero movie right. But there’s not a lot of consensus about what that lesson is. The Los Angeles Times claims that the success proves that critical acclaim matters, that TV directors can make the leap to movies, and that “art house stars” like Jeremy Renner can “cross over” (apparently Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was an indie film). Unsurprisingly, Comic Book Resources singles out the more fan-centric elements: faith in Joss Whedon; faith in the Hulk as a character that could work on film; and the movie’s emphasis on making the audience care about lesser-known (to mainstream audiences, anyway) characters like Hawkeye and Black Widow. Newsarama’s “10 Lessons We Learned from the Avengers Movie” makes the case for bigger villains; a wider, more integrated universe; and the value of having a director like Joss Whedon, who was not only a Marvel Comics fan but a Marvel Comics writer, at the helm. There’s some stretched logic in all of these: huge advance-ticket orders for Avengers kill the idea that critics were a major factor in the opening weekend (though it’ll certainly help the film have legs in the weeks to come) and interest in Black Widow as a character is undercut by reviewers dismissing Scarlett Johansson’s character as, among others, “Distracting Catsuit” – but the one seemingly incontrovertible theme seems to be this: If a nerd-friendly director is at the helm of a comics-friendly genre movie, success with the geek audience will follow. And, as go the geeks, so goes the box office. While we wish this were true – and we’d certainly rather see Joss Whedon direct superhero movies than, say, Brett Ratner (of course, Ratner’s critically panned X-Men: The Last Stand out-grossed both of Bryan Singer’s more nerd-approved X-movies) – the secret to The Avengers’ success has pretty much NOTHING to do with Joss Whedon’s geek appeal. That’s not to say that Whedon’s affinity for the characters didn’t have a lot to do with the film’s quality, but the focus among the fan community seems to be his place as “one of our own”, and there’s plenty of evidence that geek auteurship and box-office appeal are, at best, distant cousins: Edgar Wright directed what may be the truest adaptation of an indie comic ever with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but the world wasn’t interested in the outcome. Andrew Stanton’s John Carter was a labor of love that many nerds raved about, but while it will more or less break even thanks to overseas grosses, domestically the response was a yawn at best, a punchline at worst. Even Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson couldn’t make “Tintin” a household name in the States. So while fan authenticity is nice, it clearly isn’t everything. A Joss Whedon-type director (and he may be one of a kind in terms of the blend of talent and devoted fandom) could well be the best director for almost any comics-y, genre-y franchise, but not every one of those franchises is a sure sell for the mainstream audience. (Exhibit A: Serenity vs. Avengers.) With Avengers, Disney achieved something that exceeded its wildest dreams (the $4 billion paid for Marvel in 2009 suddenly looking like a bargain), successfully stitching together a bunch of largely unrelated franchises into a shared movie universe. It’s the kind of thing comics do easily – in fact, super-hero comics without a shared universe have a harder time finding traction – but movies had really never previously attempted. There has to be some connective tissue, to be sure. A movie teaming John Carter, Scott Pilgrim, and Green Lantern would not be greater than the sum of its parts (though it would be hilarious), even if each of those earlier films had ended with Samuel L. Jackson handing out invitations to the “Mismatched Franchise Initiative.” The characters in Avengers took place in the same era, on the same planet, in the same genre (Vancouver stands in for America and familiar landmarks – we’ll miss you, Grand Central – get demolished), so the pieces fit together nicely. Where geeks did the heavy lifting was selling mainstream audiences on the component pieces – a drunken playboy in high-tech armor, a green monster they knew from 1970s TV, a Shakespearean-sounding muscleman, and an acrobat in an American-flag bodysuit – that made The Avengers possible. Once non-geek audiences had embraced these previously little-known characters (Marvel spent two years before the release of Iron Man ramping up the character’s presence to get his Q score out of the cellar), they were hooked. When it came time for The Avengers, they didn’t need much convincing to see those characters again. And they won’t need convincing to go see the sequel, which has already been green-lit without any commitment from Whedon that he’ll be involved. Avengers 2 is already pretty much guaranteed to be number one its opening weekend, regardless of how much fan-cred the director has. The geeks may have made the franchise a success, but it doesn’t belong to us anymore. It shouldn’t be a surprise, really. Remember who Hollywood thinks is the real auteur behind the Avengers. It’s not Joss Whedon. It’s not Stan Lee, or even Jack Kirby. It’s right there in the title, because the number-one movie this week isn’t The Avengers. It’s Marvel’s The Avengers. ‘Nuff said.

Bonfire Agency » Ivan Cohen

Much Ado About Nerding: The Comic-Con Name Game

Why Geeks Had Nothing (and Everything) to Do with the Success of “The Avengers”